Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? by Horace Greasley Read Free Book Online Page B

of the four-tonner.
    Even closer now, Horace expected to see a plume of smoke, an explosion in the sky. But in a split second he realised to his horror that the gunfire was not coming from the Bren gun on the lorry but from the aircraft. Twenty metres ahead in the dust of the forest floor the bullets penetrated the ground with a dull thud. Horace stood directly in their path as they pounded the ground. Nearer and nearer they came, as if in a slow death motion.
    He didn’t have time to think. The adrenaline urged him forward and his rifle kicked into his shoulder so much it began to ache. The two lines of bullets ripped into the roof of the four-tonner and ricocheted around his ears. And then…. blackness, as a searing pain in his skull sent Horace into unconsciousness.
    Horace didn’t feel any better when he came round a few seconds later and found out what had happened. A medic had applied a bandage to a deep gash in his forehead and he had a bump on his head the size of an egg. At the last second a raw survival instinct had propelled him under the vehicle and he’d caught his head on the iron support bar that held the sparewheel. He’d been so close to being killed: one bullet had gone straight through the khaki of his trousers, missing his leg by a fraction of a millimetre.
    He’d stared death in the face. In fact, he’d given it one almighty slap in the chops. He had every right to feel shocked, numb even. He deserved to feel elated that he’d escaped with his life and pleased with the praise his colleagues were doling out. Even Aberfield had slapped him on the back and mumbled a few words of congratulations.
    But he felt none of that, only disappointment. The one man he’d relied on had been Private Clough on top of the lorry. Two hundred rounds a minute that Bren gun could release and he hadn’t fired one shot. As Horace Greasley had stood alone in the clearing, firing shots at the Messerschmitt almost as soon as it had come into view, Bill Clough had shat himself, leapt the ten feet to the ground in one fluid motion and scampered like a frightened rabbit deep into the forest. Horace had faced the awesome firepower of the Messerschmitt alone, with only a single-shot repeating rifle against a fully armed aircraft with a rear gunner capable of ripping a man to shreds in a few seconds.
    Horace had been lucky, of that there was no doubt. But he’d only stood there because he thought he was being protected by his mate. He told the sergeant to keep Bill Clough out of his way for a few days.
    The whole section was loaded back onto the lorry and Horace was allowed to travel up front in the cab. Aberfield thought it wouldn’t be good for troop morale if Horace had suddenly started laying into one of his comrades.
    Horace caught snippets of Aberfield’s conversation with the driver, but most of the time he just stared into the fields. Swathes of yellow corn were dancing to a tune on the wind. Occasionally he took note of another road sign that told himthey were retreating even further. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought, as he remembered the stirring lectures he’d listened to in the old clubhouse at the cricket ground in Leicester. The good old 2nd/5th Battalion Leicesters weren’t supposed to run and hide; that wasn’t what he’d heard from the officer as he’d described the glorious history of the regiment. And there wasn’t supposed to be a coward in the ranks – for that’s what Bill Clough was. How could he do that?
    Horace rubbed the bandage on his head. The medic had been right; the swelling had gone down but Jesus Christ how it hurt. After an hour they stopped by a river and Aberfield ordered the troops to disembark. They were just outside the town of Hautmont on the river Sambre. An old stone bridge crossed the river there and as the troops stood on the west side they received their orders from Aberfield.
    ‘The bridge is of strategic importance, men, and we have good information that